TOWN
AND COUNTRY IN THE BYZANTINE POSSESSIONS OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA DURING THE
LATER PERIOD OF THE EMPIRE

I

Joseph Bryennios, a Greek ecclesiastic writing about the beginning of the 15th
century, observed that five hundred years before almost every
ecclessiastical province of the Byzantine empire had a hundred flourishing
cities, whereas in his own time scarcely more than two or three, and these
poverty-stricken, survived. Three hundred years before, each archbishopric
had within its jurisdiction a thousand villages, but now there were no more
than twenty. Two hundred years before villages were healthily populated by
as many as a hundred or more prosperous families, whereas in his day there
were never more than ten, and these reduced to penury. [1]

In
making this assessment Bryennios had in mind no doubt the territorial
shrinkage which the empire had suffered by his time. The three periods of
its history to which he compares or rather contrasts his own were periods of
wide territorial extent or significant revivals which involved the
restoration of extensive territories. The periods meant, of course, are the
10th and early part of the 11th century, in the course of which the empire
achieved its widest territorial extent since the days of Justinian; the 12th
century, distinguished by the revival and some territorial recovery under
the Comneni; and the 13th century which saw the restoration of the empire
after the catastrophe of 1204. [2] As territorial

2. The best one volume history of the Byzantine empire is
that by G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, 2nd ed. (New
Brunswick, N.J., 1969). This is a volume in the Rutgers Byzantine Series.

118

expansion or shrinkage had the effect of increasing or decreasing the number
of villages and cities under the jurisdiction of the empire, by the time of
Bryennios when the territorial extent of the empire had become restricted to
Constantinople, Thessalonica, a few islands and the despotate of Morea, the
number of villages and cities under its jurisdiction were necessarily
reduced. The matter, however, does not end here. In the lament of Bryennios,
there is a sense of decadence of both town and village which cannot be
explained simply by the territorial shrinkage of the empire.

It is
generally conceded, despite some questions raised recently, [3]
that the characteristic feature of the rural society which had come to obtain
in the Byzantine empire by the end of the 9th century was the free village
community inhabited by peasants who owned their land and usually cultivated
it themselves. Each free village community formed a fiscal unit for purposes
of taxation, and the peasants living in it were collectively responsible for
the taxes allotted to their community. If a peasant, for instance, abandoned
his land and there was no one to pay the taxes, the neighboring peasants
were held responsible for these taxes, and in return, they enjoyed the
usufruct of the land. In practice, however, this responsibility was often
lifted, and in such cases the abandoned land, following the passage of
thirty years after its abandonment, became state property. The epibole
or allelengyon, as this collective responsibility for the taxes is
known in Byzantium, was doubtless designed to insure for the treasury the
collection of the land tax from all the land, keep the land under
cultivation, and, at the same time, encourage cooperation and mutual
assistance among the peasants to the end that everyone might stay on the
land. [4] The free village community had existed before,
but

4. Peter Charanis, "On the Social Structure of the Later
Roman Empire", Byzantion, 17 (1944-1945), 44. Since the publication
of my study, the most significant document which relates to the free village
community (the villages involved were located in the region of Thebes in
Greece, and the date, about the middle of the 11th century) is that
published by N. G. Svoronos, Recherches sur le cadastre byzantin et la
fiscalité aux XIe et XIIe siècles: Le cadastre de Thebes (Athens, 1959),
141-145. On pages 144 f. Svoronos writes: "dans notre document, ce sont les
grands propriétaire qui sont les plus nombreux, et surtout détiennent la
majeur partie de la terre; toutefois la comune 'libra' comprenant une bonne
proportion de payans indépendant, reste bien vivante." Svoronos' work in its
entirety was also published in the Bulletin de Correspondance hellénique,
83 (1959).

119

by
the end of the 6th century, it had virtually disappeared. To its
restoration, a revival which no doubt began in the 7th century, and
extensive development is attributed the remarkable revival of Byzantium
after the shattering blows it received in the 7th century at the hands of
the Persians, Arabs and Avaro-Slavs. The general assumption is that the
restoration of the free village community took place in Asia Minor, but
there is some reason to believe that it may first have begun in the Balkan
peninsula, more specifically in Thrace in connection with the settlement of
numerous Armenians there. [5]
That the Byzantine village community was of Slavic origin, a theory first
advanced in the 19th century by Russian scholars and recently revived by
Soviet scholars, has no basis in fact. [6]

The
free village community did not remain the dominant feature of the agrarian
society of Byzantium. It began to lose its original character already by the
end of the 9th century. Everything being equal, the small farmer, with his
strips of land, a pair of oxen and a mule or a donkey, managed to provide
for his family and sometimes even prosper beyond measure. In general,
however, he found it difficult, if indeed not impossible, to accumulate a
reserve with which to meet an emergency. Any misfortune, as for instance the
loss of one of his animals, might endanger his entire social and economic
position. For the loss would lessen his productivity and he might not be
able to pay his taxes or meet the demands of his creditors, if he had been
unfortunate enough to have resorted to borrowing. In either case he might
abandon his land and run away. [7] Protracted service in
the army might have the same results. Then again his whole existence might
be endangered by incursions of the enemy, an earthquake or the failure of
crops. Wars were perennial and failure of crops not infrequent. Under these
circumstances the small farmer was tempted to sell his land and try to eke
out a living by working for some large landed magnate. And there was no lack
of purchasers. The landed aristocracy had never ceased to occupy a very
important

5. P. Charanis, "Some Remarks on the Changes in Byzantium
in the Seventh Century", Recueil des travaux de l'Institut d'Études
byzantines (Belgrade), 8 (1963) (= Mélanges G. Ostrogorsky 1),
73-74. Lemerle (op. cit., 63) and Ostrogorsky (History..., p. 135, n.
3) attribute the restoration of the village community to an increase in
manpower, brought about by the influx of the Slavs. For chronological
reasons I find this impossible to accept: "Some Remarks...", 73.

7. Cf. M. H. Fourmy and M. Leroy, "La vie de S.
Philarète",
Byzantion, 9 (1934), 117-119, where a peasant complains that, having
lost one of his oxen, there is nothing left for him but to run away for he
will no longer be able to pay his tax and his creditors.

120

position in the society of the empire. [8] It was a powerful
and wealthy group especially in the course of the 9th century, controlling
the high military functions of the empire and enjoying many economic
privileges. That century saw also the multiplication of monastic
establishments endowed with land and ever-ready to acquire more. This
aristocracy, both lay and ecclesiastic, found its way into the free village
communities and began to absorb by various means, but principally, at least
in the 10th century, by purchase, the land holdings of the small farmers,
for land offered the most promising outlet for economic expansion, as the
economy of the empire was basically agricultural. The struggle which ensued
between the imperial throne and the aristocracy over the attempt of the
former to stop this process ended with the triumph of the aristocracy. The
struggle was decided in favor of the aristocracy shortly after the death of
Basil II (d. 1025) and it was complete by the end of the 11th century.
[9]

With
the failure of the central government to check the expansion of the large
estates in land and also in manpower, the agrarian picture which emerges in
the later centuries is quite different. The element which dominates it is
the landed magnate who is at the same time a powerful figure in the
political and military life of the empire. His possessions, acquired usually
through imperial grants, [10] but also by purchase and
even outright seizures, were vast, in some instances stretching over entire
regions. This picture obtained both in the Asiatic and Balkan regions of the
empire,
[11] but with the loss of the former roughly

8. On the survival of the landed aristocracy, see Lemerle,
op. cit., 65ff.

9. I find it difficult to understand Ostrogorsky's new
interpretation of this struggle. What he says in effect is this: that the
central government in its struggle with the aristocracy, was seeking to
protect irs own dependant peasants — its paroikoi : Ostrogorsky,
Quelques problèmes d'histoire de la paysannerie byzantine (Brussels,
1956), 11-24. I find Ostrogorsky's new interpretation difficult to reconcile
with the following statement which appears in the Novel of Romanus I
Lecapenus issued in 934: "It is not through hatred and envy of the rich that
we take these measures, but for the protection of the small and the safety
of the empire as a whole.... The extension of the power of the strong...
will bring about the irreparable loss of the public good, if the present law
does not bring a check to it. For it is the many, settled on the land, who
provide for the general needs, who pay the taxes and furnish the army with
its recruits. Everything falls when the many are wanting": Zepos-von
Lingenthal, Jus Graecoromanum (Athens, 1931), 1: 209. See also
Lemerle, "Esquisse...",
Revue historique, 219: 2 (1958), 268 ff. Lemerle insists on a new edition
of the novels issued by the emperors of the 10th century as a necessary step
in the interpretation of the struggle between the central government and the
aristocracy.

10. The pronoia of the Byzantine texts. The most
thorough study of this institution is that of Ostrogorsky, Pour
l'histoire de la féodalité byzantine, French translation by H. Grégoire
(Brussels, 1954). See also P. Charanis, "The Monastic Properties and the
State in the Byzantine Empire", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 4 (1948),
87-92.

11. On the aristocracy in the 13th century, see P.
Charanis, "The Aristocracy of Byzantium in the Thirteenth Century",
Studies in Roman Economic and Social History in Honor of Allen Chester
Johnson
(Princeton, 1951), 336-355.

121

by
the beginning of the 14th century, only the latter remained and to these we
turn.

In
Thessaly, the region of Demetrias was dominated by the family of the
Maliaseni.
[12] Constantine Maliasenus, married to the niece of
Theodore Comnenus Angelus, the Despot of Epirus, was at the beginning of the
13th century a veritable dynast and the virtual owner of the entire region.
His position, influence and vast possessions were inherited by his son and
successor, Nicholas, who lived during the reign of Michael Palaeologus. The
Maliaseni were relatives of the Palaeologi. Their possessions included many
villages over whose peasant inhabitants and their property they were
absolute masters. Besides the Maliaseni there were other big magnates in
Thessaly. Thessaly was indeed the country among the Greek lands where
'feudalization' reached its greatest development. Powerful families such as
the Strategopuli and the Gabrielopuli held vast possessions, but in addition
to them there were others whose influence and wealth, if somewhat lesser,
was still considerable. As an example, a certain Marmaras may be mentioned.
Marmaras was a
protonobillisimus, a title which appears for the last time in Byzantine
documents, and held the village of Trinovo, which had been granted to him as
a
pronoia by the emperor, probably Michael Palaeologus. Like others of
his class, Marmaras tried to increase his holdings by the seizure of
neighboring properties which did not belong to him. He lost in the end, but
his attempt illustrates one of the ways the powerful sought to add to their
properties. [13]

What
was true of Thessaly was also true of Macedonia and Thrace. There were
located the vast estates of the powerful Byzantine families, whose members
dominated the political life of the empire — the Angeli, the Cantacuzeni,
the Tzamblaci, the Synadeni and others. Their great holdings, the existence
of which is well attested to by the sources of the 14th century, were
doubtless already in their possession in the 13th century.
[14] The Tzamblaci,
[15] who in the 14th century possessed vast

domains in the region of Christopolis, Serres, and Thessalonica, were in the
service of the Palaeologi and before them in that of John III Vatatzes and
were amply rewarded by them. This is also true of the Angeli. It is known
from a document, dated 1306, that Manuel Angelus, described as a relative of
the emperor, possessed a number of villages in the neighborhood of Serres
and Thessalonica. These villages had already belonged to his father, having
been granted to him by an imperial chrysobul. The possessions of the
Cantacuzeni in Thrace were fabulous, and those of the Synadeni were
considerable. The Synadeni are known to have possessed important properties
in the region of Serres granted to them by an imperial chrysobul, and
the vast wealth of John Cantacuzenus had already been in the possession of
the family by the end of the 13th century. The Cantacuzeni possessed lands
also in the Morea
[16] where the agrarian picture was very much like that in
Thessaly. In every region there were also vast stretches of land owned by
monasteries and the church. [17]

What
happened, one may ask, to the village communities? As villages they
continued, of course, to exist, but their character had changed. No longer
inhabited by free peasant proprietors but dependant tenants, the paroikoi of
the Byzantine texts, they had become the 'property' of powerful magnates,
lay and ecclesiastical. Some peasant proprietors did indeed continue to
exist, but whether this was also so with entire free village communities is
a matter upon which no definite pronouncement can be made.
[18] What can be said with definiteness, however, is that in the later
period, particularly the period of the Palaeologi, what characterized the
agricultural landscape of the Byzantine empire was the dependant village. If
villages inhabited entirely by small peasant proprietors did in fact survive
they must have been very few and far between and hardly any better
economically — certainly in the 14th century — than the non-free ones.

The
peasants inhabiting the dependant villages were subject to various dues and
obligations, known collectively as their burden (ßapoc), payable

18. On this see P. Charanis, "On the Social Structure and
Economie Organization of the Byzantine Empire in the Thirteenth Century and
Later", Byzanlinoslavica, 12 (1951), 119-134. The view expressed here
is that the free village community, for all practical purposes, disappeared,
but traces of it could still be found. Ostrogorsky is more sceptical;
"Quelque problèmes...", 41-74.

123

to
their lord. In the payment of these dues there are instances of'voluntary'
collective responsibility, an indication perhaps of the previous free state
of the village. To illustrate:

In
Thessaly the village of Dryanoubaene and the surrounding country belonged to
Nicholas Maliasenus. It had been transmitted to him by his father, and the
transmission was confirmed by the emperor. Maliasenus and his wife decided
to build a monastery for women, known after its construction as Nea Petra
and dedicated to St. John the Precursor. For the site of the new monastery
they chose a spot which for years was occupied by the peasant Michael
Archontitzes and his family. Maliasenus bought the land from the peasant for
twelve hyperpera, but the purchase was an act of generosity rather
than of necessity. For in the act of sale Archontitzes acknowledged that as
his master and lord, Maliasenus could have taken the land without giving any
compensation, but he chose to pay for it. [19] By his
foundation of the new monastery and his payment for the land on which the
monastery was build, Maliasenus showed himself both pious and generous, but
actually his sacrifice, in so far as the actual construction of the
monastery and the purchase of the land of Archontitzes were concerned, was
negligible. For the monastery was doubtless built with the labor and
materials provided by the peasants of his domain, while the money which he
had paid for the land was soon recovered by the continued payment of the
taxes which Archontitzes used to pay to him for his land. Archontitzes used
to pay to Maliasinus a tax of three and one-third hyperera. This tax
was henceforth paid to him by all the peasants of Dryanoubaene, who
apportioned it among themselves on the basis of ability to pay.
[20] This apportionment among the peasants on the basis of ability to
pay is an interesting note in that it shows what is known from other
sources, that tenant peasants were not economically equal.

It
would be a mistake to assume on the basis of the common action taken by the
peasants of Dryanoubaene that peasants in Thessaly or for that matter
elsewhere were in general prosperous. Quite the contrary was true. This we
gather from a series of documents, acts of sale, which relate to the
monastery of Nea Petra mentioned above. In 1271 a certain Michael Martinus
and his wife sold to the founders of the monastery of Nea Petra their only
vineyard because, as they put it, the universal shortage of grain had
reduced them into destitution and threatened them

together with their young children with famine. [21] In the
following year another peasant, Constantine Katzidones by name, sold his
vineyard to the same monastery because the daily incursions which his region
had suffered reduced him to such a degree of poverty that his family did not
have the necessary food. He wanted to use the proceeds from the sale of his
vineyard to buy an ox with the help of which he might earn his living by
plowing the fields of others. [22] In the same year and
for the same reason his brother John sold his vineyard to the same
monastery.
[23] Poverty was also the reason given by another peasant,
Nicolas Bardas, for the sale of his vineyard to Nea Petra. He, too, wanted
to buy an ox with which to cultivate the land in order that he might be able
to feed and cover himself. [24] Another person sold his
mill to the same monastery, again because of the universal lack of grain, a
lack which had continued for a long time. [25] Poverty and
loneliness were the reasons given by a woman, Zoe by name, for the sale of
her property to Nea Petra. She entered the monastery and presumably passed
the rest of her life as a nun.[26]
That tenant peasants had property to sell is to be explained by the fact that
they could own and indeed often did own property which they could sell
provided the purchaser, unless exempted by higher authority, assumed the
burden incumbent on that property.

It is
possible to look, at least to some extent, inside the village of the later
centuries of the Byzantine empire, especially for the period covered by the
first half of the 14th century. This possibility exists thanks to the
survival of a series of documents, the so-called practica,
inventories of dependant villages drawn for purposes of taxation.
[27]
These practica list by name the peasants and their property, the latter
consisting primarily of land, livestock and trees. Besides the land given to
the cultivation of cereals and other crops, vineyards and vegetable gardens
are often mentioned. Among the livestock, oxen used for the plow, hogs,
sheep and bees predominate, while among the trees those frequently mentioned
are the fig, the olive and the walnut. But what makes the practica of
the 14th century important as sources is that they deal with the same
villages at different dates. This makes possible an examination of the
social and

27. On the practica as documents and sources: Ostrogorsky,
Pour l'histoire de la féodalité byzantine, 259-368.

125

economic situation of these villages as it may have changed from one year to
another.

In
what follows, the observations offered relate to two villages: Melintziani,
located in the administrative circumscription of the Strymon, to the west of
that river; and the village of Gomatou located in the administrative
circumscription of Hierissos immediately west of Mt. Athos. Both villages
belonged to the Athonian monastery of Iberon. The dates involved are 1301
and 1317 for Melintziani; 1301, 1317, and 1341 for Gomatou.

For
the year 1301 there are listed for the village of Melintziani twenty-nine
households for a total of 121 persons. [28] Five of these
households were headed by widows. Twelve of the households were large, with
a membership of five in the case of six of them, six in the case of two,
seven in the case of three and eight in the case of one, for a total of
seventy-one persons or approximately 59% of the total registered population.
For the year 1317 for the same village I have counted thirty-three
households for a total of 126 persons. [29] Five of these
households were headed by widows and eight were large with a membership of
five in the case of four, six in the case of three and seven in the case of
one, for a total of forty-five persons or 36 % of the total registered
population. In the inventory of 1317 there are four households the names of
which do not appear in the inventory of 1301 and as a consequence they must
be presumed to be new in the sense of newcomers. The new households were
most probably settled by the monastery to offset a decline in the number of
peasants of the village, a decline which seems to be indicated by the
reduction of the number of big households. In general, however, what is
striking about these statistics is the relatively high degree of stability
which the village of Melintziani seems to have maintained from 1301 to 1317.

For
the village of Goumatou in 1301 there are listed fifty households for a
total of 262 persons. [30] Six of these households were
headed by widows and twenty-nine were large with a membership of five in the
case of eleven, six in the case of seven, seven in the case of five, eight
in the case of three, nine in the case of one, ten in the case of two, and
eleven in the case of one, for a total of 196 persons or approximately 75%
of the total registered population. The Byzantine household was, of course,

something more than a simple family as the latter is generally understood. It
consisted not only of parents, children and possibly grandparents, but often
included a number of other relatives. For instance, the household of eleven
members cited above included, besides its head and his wife, two sons, the
wife of one of the sons, one daughter and her husband and five
grandchildren. Brothers or sisters of the head or his wife, and nephews and
nieces are other relatives often found among the members of households.

In
the year 1317 there are listed for Goumatou forty-six households for a total
of 157 persons. [31] Fifteen of these households were
headed by widows and only seven were large — five whose membership consisted
of five persons and two of six for a total of thirty-seven persons or a
little more than 23% of the registered population. Seven households with a
total membership of twenty-five persons were new. Things to be noted in the
list of 1317 as compared to that of 1301 are the small number of the large
households, the large number of households headed by widows and the
relatively large number of new households. The latter constituted 15% of all
the households and their total membership, 16% of the registered population.
By 1341 more changes had taken place. For that year there are listed
thirty-one households for a total of 110 persons. [32]
Seven of these households were headed by widows only one of whom is found
listed in 1317, and seven were large with a membership of five in the case
of one, six in the case of four, seven in the case of one, eight in the case
of another for a total of forty-four persons or 40 % of the registered
population. Nine new households or a little less than 30 % of the total have
made their appearance; with a total membership of thirty-two persons, they
made up 30 % of the total registered population. The large number of
households (33 % of the total) headed by widows in 1317 should be
interpreted perhaps to have been a result of the depredations of the
Catalans. Some eight or nine years earlier the Catalans, as is well known,
were very active in the region where Goumatou was located.
[33]

There
are several observations that may be made on the basis of this statistical
analysis. First of all, in both Melintziani and Goumatou, between 1301 and
1317 in the former and 1301 and 1341 in the latter, a decrease in the number
of large households took place. This decrease

was
apparently general if one may judge from the statistical information
available in the case of other villages. [34] Underlying
this decrease was a decline in the population of the villages, quite evident
in the case of Goumatou, not so evident but nevertheless real also in the
case of Melintziani. It was the case also with other villages.
[35] Those who owned the villages tried to offset this decline by
settling newcomers, peasants who had come from other villages and other
regions. Mentioned in the
practica which have been analyzed, there is an Anatolikos, a Boleros,
and a Lemnaeos, names derived no doubt from the geographical origins of
those who bore them. [36] The mobility of peasants which
may be inferred from all this should not, however, be exaggerated. Most
peasants died in the villages where they were born and registered. This,
too, is shown by the practica.

But
if some villages suffered only a decline in population, there were others
which became deserted. About the latter — their number, the regions where
they were located, the period during which they were deserted — something is
now known thanks to a preliminary survey published in 1966 by
Antoniadis-Bibicou. The survey covers the regions which constitute modern
Greece and extends chronologically from the 11th through the 19th century.
[37]
It is, of course, only the Byzantine period included in the survey which is of
interest to us here.

Eighty-six villages, according to Madame Antoniadis, were deserted in the
course of the 11th century, three during the first half and eighty-three
during the second half of that century. For the 12th century she has found
only thirty, twenty of which were deserted in the course of the second half
of that century. The 13th century saw the desertion of sixty-six villages of
which fifty-seven were deserted after 1250. More than half of these
villages, about 66 %, were located in the islands,[38]
an indication perhaps that their desertion was the result of piracy, an
activity which was widely prévalant during the second half of the 13th
century and

37. H. Antoniadis-Bibicou, "Villages désertés en Grèce.
Un bilan provisoire", Rivista di storia dell’ Agricoltura (1966),
343-379 for the Byzantine period and the introductory remarks of the author.
See page 364 for a table of the deserted villages and the period of their
desertion.

later. [39] But by far the greatest number of villages
became deserted in the 14th century. Madame Antoniadis counted a total of
458 villages deserted, 136

of
which were deserted during the first half, and 322 during the second half of
that century. They were to be found in every region of the empire but the
majority of them were located in Macedonia and Thrace. The villages deserted
in the 15th century number sixty-five for the first half and fifty-eight for
the second half for a total of 123. The damage had been obviously done in
the 14th century.

Thus
the decadence of the Byzantine village, begun already in the 10th century,
reached its culminating point in the 14th. That century saw the final
disintegration of the Byzantine countryside. By then virtually every village
was in a state of decline, deserted or in the process of being so. Oppressed
by magnates whose dependants they were, there was very little that the
peasants could do. They might agitate as they apparantly did
[40] or even break out into open rebellion as did the Thracian peasants
inhabiting the villages in the neighborhood of Didymotichon in 1342,
[41] but all this to no avail. So flagrant were the abuses
to which they were exposed that the Turks saw in them one of the important
reasons for their success. "God has decreed", said the Turks, "that they
should take the land from the Christians because they do not conduct their
affairs ... with justice, because they look to wealth and favour, and the
rich treat the poor with haughtiness, and do not help them either with gifts
or with justice." [42] The central government, its powers
gone, with no money and man-power, even if willing, was in no position to
help. Andronicus the Younger in his struggle against his grandfather did
indeed promise to reduce the burden on the peasantry in Thrace, but nothing
concrete seems to have come out of this promise. [43] In
1367 the emperor John V submitted meekly to the church when it rejected his
plea to turn over to him

40. "The poor", declared Palamas in one of his homilies,
"not able to endure the cruelty and inhumanity of the taxgatherers and the
continued violence and injuries of the strong, clamor against those in
authority and the army": Palamas, M. S. Gr. (Paris, 1239), fols.
284-284v, as cited by O. Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzième siècle
(Paris, 1913), 109, n. 1.

some
of its property in order that he might settle soldiers on it.
[44] To be sure some years later Manuel II secularized half of the
monastic estates in order that he might turn them into allotments for
soldiers, [45] but in so doing he met with the vigorous
opposition of ecclesiastics. [46] Eventually, much later
however, he returned at least part of the confiscated property to their
original owners. [47] Meanwhile the dynastic wars which
were also social wars and the continuous incursions of foreigners wrought
havoc everywhere. Peasants were killed or fled — fled perhaps to another
village where the same fate most probably awaited them — or sought refuge in
some city where they helped to swell the ranks of the poor and intensify the
social tension. The countryside lay prostrate, ready to be grabbed by the
willing foreigner.

II

The
city as a social and economic center in the Byzantine empire never ceased to
exist. There has been considerable discussion in recent years

46. It is perhaps with the secularization of monastic
properties effected by Manuel that the so called 'anti-zealot' discourse of
Nicolas Cabasilas, long associated with the Zealot revolt in Thessalonica,
was composed. The idea was first suggested by G. T. Dennis (The Reign of
Manuel II Palaeohgus in Thessalonica, 1382-1387 [ = Orientalia
Christiana Analecta, vol. 158], Rome, 1960, p. 23) and was characterized
by me in my review of Dennis' book (Speculum, 36 [1961], 476-477) as
making good sense. Ihor Ševčenko, whose publication of this discourse
revealed that there were no solid grounds to associate it with the Zealots,
viewed Dennis' suggestion and my approval of it sympathetically, but made no
definite pronouncement, contenting himself to the reinforcement of his
position that the discourse was composed later than the revolt of the
Zealots, a position which he did not originally hold, but came to it
gradually: Ihor Ševčenko, "Nicolas' 'Anti-Zealot Discourse': A
Reinterpretation", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 11 (1957), 91-171. On page
170 of this work Ševčenko writes: "Viewed against the perspective of the
fourteenth-century tensions, the Discourse ... in my opinion was written
about 1344". A few years later (Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 14 [1960], p.
188), Ševčenko wrote: "But my dating of the Discourse [i.e., 1344], must
remain a mere suggestion. I continue to believe that the Discourse is
concerned with, among other things, the secularization measures undertaken
by the imperial government for defense purposes. Within this interpretation,
a later date for the Discourse is also possible. Cabasilas may have reacted
to governmental actions that affected monastic properties after the battle
of Maritza (1371)". By 1962 he had definitely come to the conclusion that he
could assign no date to the composition of the
Discourse, but suggests that it may have been written in the last thirty
years of the 14th century: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16 (1962), 408f. He
may, of course, be right. On the other hand, if he is right, as I believe he
is, that the Discourse "is concerned with ... the secularization
measures undertaken by the imperial government", then the suggestion that
its composition was associated with the confiscatory measures taken by
Manuel II shortly after the battle of Maritza seems to me the most tenable.

on
this point: whether crises of the 7th and 8th centuries may not have brought
it to an end. The general consensus, correct in my opinion, is that they did
not. [48] Damage was done, of course, both in Asia Minor
and the Balkan peninsula, particularly in the latter where the cities of the
interior were destroyed. But Constantinople remained standing as did both
Thessalonica and Athens, though the latter in a state of deterioration. If
the Balkan peninsula was not definitely overrun by the Slavs in its entirety
and if today there is a considerable part of it where the spoken language is
Greek, that is, of course, due to the survival of Constantinople, but also
to that of Thessalonica. Had the latter succumbed during the crises of the
6th-7th centuries, Greece itself would have been permanently overwhelmed by
the invaders and no amount of schooling, administrative and ecclesiastical
activity would have revived Greek as the spoken language. To talk otherwise
is to talk irresponsibly.

However that may be, it cannot be denied that the urban life in the Balkan
peninsula had been reduced to a minimum. With the establishment of order,
however, as one region after another was brought back under the effective
jurisdiction of Byzantium, the urban center in the Balkan possessions of the
empire began to develop again. Already by the end of the 9th century,
Corinth, Patras, Lacedemon, Thebes, Athens, Demetrias, and Serres, to give a
few examples, had begun to show considerable activity. Thessalonica seems to
have recovered fully from the disaster of 904, for an Arab traveller early
in the 10th century refers to it as a "huge and large" city. And there is
the reference in Cecaumenus to a populous city in Hellas which the Bulgar
Symeon tried to take. Unfortunately he does not name the city. The Bulgar
wars under Symeon and Samuel may have retarded somewhat the process of
growth. Arethas of Caesarea, for instance, wondered if the Cadmeia of Thebes
still stood after the incursions of Symeon. And a passage in the life of St.
Peter of Argos, no doubt referring to the campaign of the Bulgarians during
the reign of Symeon,

48.
Ostrogorsky,
"Byzantine Cities in the Early Middle Ages", Dumbarton Oaks Papers,
13 (1959), 45-66. The problem of town and village was one of the subjects
which was given full discussion at the Twelfth International Congress of
Byzantine Studies held in Ochrida Yugoslavia in 1961 : Actes du Xlle
Congrès International d'Études Byzantines (Belgrade, 1963), 1:1-44;
275-298. Some Russian scholars hold that the city in the Byzantine empire
disappeared in the course of the 7th century. Cf. Ostrogorsky, History...,
p. 134, n. 1. On the form and evolution of the Byzantine city see, for
instance, the important study by Ernst Kirsten, "Die byzantinische Stadt",
Berichte zum XI. InternationalenByzantinischen-Kongress (Munich, 1958),
1-48. Also thhe discussion of this paper where additional bibliographical
references are given: Diskussions-Beiträge zum XI. Internationalen
Byzantinisten-Kongress
(Munich, 1961), 75-102.

131

reads: "barbarians for three years possessed the Peloponnesus; they massacred
many people and thoroughly devastated the whole country, completely
destroying the traces of former wealth and good order." Notice the
expressions "former wealth and good order", which shows that the
Peloponnesus was clearly on the road to recovery after the dark period of
the earlier centuries. The Bulgarian wars caused, of course, hardships,
shifting of population and loss of life elsewhere as well, but once they
were over, a period of relative prosperity and growth in population seems to
have set in. P. Tivčev in a comparatively recent article [49]
mentions a number of cities described in the sources of the 12th century by
one or more of the following terms : "megalopolis", "well-peopled",
"populous", "prosperous", "beautiful", "wealthy", "famous". The cities he
cites are Corinth, Athens, Thebes, Larissa, Kitros, Janina, Castoria,
Thessalonica, Serres, Zichna, Philippi, Rodosto, Mossinopolis, Demotica,
Adrianople, Serdica (Sofia), Philippopolis, and Niš. To them I may add
Lacedemon, Libadhia, Demetrias, Armyros, Carystos, Ochrida, Scopia,
Christopolis, Drama, Selymbria, Heracleia, Gallipoli, and Panados. Edrisi,
from whose work most of the information referring to these cities is
derived, adds further that the Peloponnesus was very prosperous and that one
could count in it about fifty cities among which sixteen were very
important.
[50]

How
populous these cities were in terms of numbers is, of course, impossible to
say. Some of them were no doubt small, with a population perhaps of no more
than 5,000, though this is a simple guess. Some were certainly larger, as
for instance Thebes, where, according to Benjamin of Tudela, there dwelled
2,000 Jews. [51] The largest was Thessalonica which ever
remained, next to Constantinople, the ranking Byzantine city, the
megalopolis, to use the term applied to it by Theophanes at the beginning of
the 9th century, of the Balkan peninsula. [52] Its
population in the 12th century may have numbered 100,000 or more.
[53] As a commercial center it served not only the surrounding country,
something which was true with most Byzantine cities, but was also an
international market of some

50. On all this with the appropriate references: P.
Charanis, "Observations on the Demography of the Byzantine Empire",
Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies,
Oxford, 5-10 September 1966, edited by J. M. Hussey, D. Obolensky, S.
Runciman (London, 1967), 460.

significance. Its annual fair, held at the time of the feast of St. Demetrius,
its patron saint, was famous throughout Europe and the Near East. Merchants
of every nationality — Bulgarians, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, French,
Syrians, Egyptians and numerous others — came to Thessalonica to exchange
their goods. These goods were of every kind. Here is how the author of
Timarion, who lived in the 12th century, describes them:
[54]

And
if you are anxious to know what it (the fair) contains ... well, there was
every kind of material woven or spun by men or women, all those that come
from Boeotia and the Peloponnesus [55] and all that are
brought in trading ships from Italy to Greece. Besides this, Phoenicia
furnishes numerous articles, and Egypt, and Syria, and the pillars of
Hercules, where the finest coverlets are manufactured. These things the
merchants bring direct from their respective countries to old Macedonia and
Thessalonica; but the empire also contributes to the splendor of the fair,
by sending across its products to Constantinople, whence the cargoes are
brought by numerous horses and mules.

The
picture drawn of the urban landscape of the Balkan regions of the Byzantine
empire obtained in the 12th century. Towards the end of that century,
however, things began to change and this change continued in the centuries
that followed. The demoralized state of the empire under the Angeli, the
revival of the Bulgarian kingdom and more importantly, the Fourth Crusade
and the wars which followed could not but affect adversely the Byzantine
city. Already in 1185 Thessalonica suffered grievously at the hands of the
Normans, the same Normans who some forty years earlier had sacked Corinth
and Thebes and carried away from these two cities the expert silk workers.
[56]
"This city", wrote Eustathius of Thessalonica in his account of the sack of
the city by the Normans, "which had always been opulent in worldly goods was
now disfigured by the dead who lay unburied", and who in their totality
numbered more than 7,000. [57] Such was the awesomeness of
this disaster that it brought a change on the throne in Constantinople.

55. Thebes in Boeotia
and Corinth in the Peloponnesus in the 12th century were famous for their
silken goods. In 1147 when the Norman king of Sicily, Roger II, sacked these
two cities, he carried the expert silk weavers to Sicily. Ostrogorsky,
History..., 381f.

But
still more awesome was the disaster of 1204. When Constantinople was
captured by the Latins in that year about half of the city was burned and a
considerable part of its population fled. [58] The work of
restoration affected by the emperor Michael VIII, [59]
following its recapture by the Greeks, gave it some life, but the decline
which set in soon thereafter continued unabated until the city fell to the
Turks in 1453. Pero Tafur, who visited Constantinople in 1447, states in one
place that the city was "badly populated" and in another that it was
"sparsely" populated. [60] Clavijo, who was there some
years earlier, noted that although the circuit of the walls was "very great
and the area spacious, the city was not very densely populated throughout".
[61] The Florentine Buondelmonti, who wrote his account in
1420, says that the inhabitants were few, [62] while
another source, dated 1437, fixes their number at 40,000. [63]
In the 12th century Constantinople had a population of about 500,000.
[64]

In
the 14th century Thessalonica was still an important international market
where the products of every land could be found. [65]
Nevertheless, given the disturbed conditions which characterized the Byzantine
lands and Thessalonica itself throughout the 14th century, there can be
little doubt that Thessalonica itself must have declined. In 1423 the
population of Thessalonica, according to one source, [66]
numbered 40,000 and ac-

58. Geoffroi de Ville-Hardouin, La Conquête de
Constantinople, edited and translated into modern French by M. Natalis
de Wailly (Paris, 1872), 145.

59. P. Charanis, "A Note on the Population and Cities of
the Byzantine Empire in the Thirteenth Century", The Joshua Starr
Memorial Volume (New York, 1953), 139f.

60. A. Vasiliev, "Pero Tafur: A Spanish Traveler of the
Fifteenth Century and his Visit to Constantinople, Trebizond, and Italy",
Byzantion, 8 (1932), 95, 113.

63. Neos Hellenomnemon, 7 (1910). In the light of
certain conconsiderations, I have estimated the population of Constantinople
at the time of its fall to have been around 75,000. A. M. Schneider puts it
for the same period at 50,000: "Die Bevölkerung Konstantinopels im XV.
Jahrhundert", Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen,
Philologisch-historische Klasse (1949), 236-237. Schneider's figure is
usually cited though the grounds for it are no more solid than for mine.

64. See my discussion of this whole problem in my
"Observations on the Demography...", 448-450.

cording to another, [67] 25,000. When it was taken by the
Ottomans in 1430, it had no more than 7,000 men, women, and children.

Meanwhile other cities had suffered. Philipopolis, referred to by
Ville-Hardouin
[68] as the third best city of the empire, was leveled to
the ground by John I Asan soon after 1204. Serres, next to Thessalonica the
largest city in Macedonia, met with the same fate. Both cities were
subsequently recovered and rebuilt, but it is certain that they never
recovered their previous prosperity. [69] Byzantine
historians continue to use such terms as "marvelous", "great", "strong",
"populous", and "large" in their references to the cities of Macedonia and
Thrace, but we can be sure that most of these cities were fairly small and
that most probably were not as prosperous as they may have been in the 12th
century. [70] The one exception was Mistra,
[71] which, as the capital of the Greek Morea, drew people to its fold,
but that was a special case. Every city was at the same time a fortress and
as such it no doubt drew to itself some of the refugees from the
countryside, but that could not have affected radically the size of its
population. The city, like the countryside, from the 13th century may be
described as in a state of decline.

Nevertheless, the city was still an important force in Byzantine society and
at times strong enough to protect its own interests. In the disintegrating
conditions in which the empire found itself in the 13th century and later,
cities found it necessary to shift for themselves. After the capture of
Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, the citizens of Adrinople took matters
into their own hands in an effort to assure the safety and interests of
their city. [72] The citizens of Melinikon were consulted
on the question of turning the town over to John Vatatzes and an embassy
representing them was sent to negotiate with the emperor. [73]
The citizens of Mesembria and Anchialus refused to turn their cities over to
the Bulgarian king Constantine, to whom they had been promised as dowry when
he married the niece of Michael Palaeologus, the daughter of

Michael's sister Eulogia. [74] There were cities which by
virtue of the privileges they had been able to obtain from central authority
may be said to have become autonomous or even independant.

One
of these cities was Thessalonica, but in her case it is a problem to
determine what exactly her privileges were. It is certain that in the 13th
and 14th centuries the landed property of the inhabitants of Thessalonica
were exempted from certain obligations,
δουλεῖα, but
other than this nothing more can be said with any definiteness.
[75] More precise is the information which relates to three other cities:
Phanarion in Thessaly, Monemvasia in the Morea, and Jannina in Epirus. In
the case of Monemvasia [76] the privileges enjoyed were
primarily commercial in that its merchants were exempt from virtually all
commercial taxes. Monemvasia, strategically and commercially, was an
important city which the imperial government needed to hold, but the
granting to it of commercial privileges may have been also a move to
counteract the activities of the Italian merchants whose strangle-hold on
the economic life of the empire was being felt more and more.

Much
more comprehensive than the above were the privileges granted to Jannina.
[77] The imperial document issued in favor ofthat city in
1317 included the following: a guarantee that the city would never be ceded
to the Franks; a guarantee that the imperial governor of Jannina would never
move and resettle elsewhere any of the citizens of Jannina against their
will, unless they were the cause of public disorder; a provision for the
election of judges by the citizens who would act together with the imperial
governor and would jduge all cases except those subject to the
ecclesiastical court; freedom of trade throughout the empire without the
payment of the commercial taxes; a guarantee that the citizens of Jannina,
unless they were enrolled soldiers and held economiae for that
purpose, would not be forced to serve in the army outside their own city;
exemption from certain land taxes and corvées; and finally, the right to
appeal

75. Actes de l'Athos, V. Actes de Chilandar,
edited by R. P. Louis Petit and appended to Vizantijskij Vremennik,
17 (1911), 51. What we have here is a document, dated 1306, which says that
a certain patrician, Manuel Angelus by name, was to have certain properties
free from the obligations of δουλεῖα, a privilege enjoyed by the citizens of
Thessalonica. On the municipal privileges of Thessalonica, one should
consult the excellent work by A. E. Bakalopoules, "Contribution to the
History of Thessalonica during the Venetian Domination (1423-1430)" (in
Greek), Volume on the Occasion of the Six Hundredth Anniversary of
Harmenopoulos (=
Epistemonike Epeteris, 6), (Thessalonica, 1952), 127-149.

to
the emperor if any of these privileges were violated by the imperial
governor of Jannina. The provisions of the official document issued in favor
of Phanarion in 1295 were not as extensive as these, but they included one
very important point: no garrison other than the one provided by the
inhabitants of Phanarion was ever to be stationed in the town.
[78]

The
citizens of Phanarion are referred to in the document issued in their favor
in 1295 as archontes, i.e., leading citizens, but a distinction is
drawn among them: some are called great, others small; some laymen, others
clerics; some held a grant by chrysobul; others were beneficiaries of
various exemptions. But whatever their designation, these were people, many
of them magnates of considerable wealth, who owned the land in the
surrounding country-side and made Phanarion their home. This fact points to
a very important feature of the Byzantine city : the most important element
of its population, judged by its wealth and power, consisted of landed
magnates whose property, usually if not always, lay in the surrounding
countryside and whose city possessions often included shops, as was the case
with the Cantacuzeni in Serres. [79] In the Byzantine
city, merchants and artisans were very much in evidence and at times even
influential in politics,
[80] but they did not dominate its life. That role was
reserved for the landed aristocracy. They were the ones who directed the
cities in one way or another and sought to obtain for them privileges and
exemptions. [81] The produce of their estates furnished
the market with the important commodities, and they themselves often dealt
directly with foreign merchants as did, for instance, the Tzamblaci with
Ragusan merchants. [82] For this reason they were not
unmindful of the commercial interests of their city and sought to obtain for
it commercial priviliges as is shown by the document issued in favor of
Jannina to which reference has been made. However important

80. On the political activities of the trade guilds up to
the end of the 11th century see the excellent work by Speros Vryonis,
"Byzantine Δημοκατία and the Guilds in the Eleventh Century", Dumbarton
Oaks Papers, 17 (1963), 289-314.

81. F. Francés refers to the domination of the city by
the aristocracy as the "feudalization" of the city. "La féodalité et les
villes Byzantines au XIIIe et au XIVe siècles", Byzantinoslavica, 16
(1955), 76-96.

commerce and industry may have been, there is always something agrarian about
the Byzantine city in that a considerable portion of its population was
engaged in agriculture. Gregory Palamas declared in one of his sermons that
most of the inhabitants of Thessalonica spread into the country in order to
take care of the harvest and bring in the crops. [83]

All
was not well with the Byzantine city during the later period of the empire.
The regulatory economy, i.e., the strict control over foreign commerce and
the organization of the domestic trades and professions into private and
public guilds which was the rule during the earlier period,
[84]
completely broke down with the result that transactions became increasingly
fraudulent. False weights were used, wheat was horded and often mixed with
chaff or rotten wheat, and prices were exorbitant. [85]
Meanwhile what was left of commerce had fallen into the hands of Italian
merchants who determined the prices of even the daily necessities.
[86] At the same time the local nobility squeezed all it
could out of the common people, which in turn cast envious eyes upon the
former's wealth. [87] The result was social tension which
increased as time went on and led to repeated outbreaks of the poor against
the rich. The most serious of these outbreaks was that of the Zealots in
Thessalonica (1342-1349), but they occurred elsewhere [88]
and remained a threat throughout the 14th century. [89] By
the end of that century the city, like the countryside, was ready to be
grabbed by the foreigner who was rapidly taking advantage of the situation.

87. On all this see Peter Charanis, "Internal Strife in
Byzantium in the Fourteenth Century", Byzantion, 15 (1940-1941),
221-225. This matter of the poor versus the rich became a theme of
literature. See Ihor Ševcenko, Alexios Makrembolites and his "Dialogue
between the Rich and the Poor", Recueil des travaux de l'Institut d'Étude
byzantines, 6 (Belgrade, 1960), 187-228.

88. Charanis, "Internal Strife...", 208-230. On the
Zealots see further the studies of Sevčenko (above, note 46) and the
numerous references which he cites.